Different adapters and applications may publish information on the messaging bus and retrieve information from the bus simultaneously in a manner that does not cause interference or problems in the publication or retrieval. Meter data is cleaned, validated and estimated by separate applications using the above-described application and retrieval processes via the message bus for flexible and efficient processing.
Legal claims defining the scope of protection, as filed with the USPTO.
1. A meter data management computer system for managing meter data, the system configured to communicate with a meter data collection system that collects meter data from a plurality of meters recording utility usage, and with an application software system, the meter data management computer system comprising: a computer processor; a storage device; a plurality of interfaces stored in the storage device, the plurality of interfaces including a first interface configured to interface the meter data collection system and a second interface configured to interface the application software system; a database residing in the storage device and configured to store the meter data or related information, the related information including information derived from the meter data; a first application stored in the storage device and configured to insert the meter data or the related information into the database; a list of identifiers or flags stored in the storage device and shared by the first application and the plurality of interfaces; and a message bus coupled to the computer processor and to the storage device, the message bus configured via middleware to transfer the meter data or the related information via one or more messages published thereon between the meter data collection system, the first application, the database, the plurality of interfaces, and the application software system wherein: the plurality of interfaces and the first application are each configured to publish on the message bus the one or more messages each with one of the identifiers or flags; the plurality of interfaces and the first application are each configured to retrieve from the message bus only the one or more messages of interest based on the identifiers or flags in the one or more messages; and the plurality of interfaces and the first application are each configured to publish the one or more messages each with one of the identifiers or flags to the message bus simultaneously via the middleware such that none of the plurality of interfaces or the first application has to wait until publication of the one or more messages by another of the plurality of interfaces or the first application has completed.
2. The computer system of claim 1 , wherein each of the identifiers or flags indicates a characteristic of content of the one or more messages.
3. The computer system of claim 2 , wherein the characteristic includes one or more of the following: account, rate cycle, route premise, service delivery point, a change in one or more of the meters, rate, route, cycle, premise status, service agreement, and customer.
4. The computer system of claim 2 , wherein publication and retrieval of the one or more messages by each of the interfaces and first application do not affect the publication and retrieval of the one or more messages by any other one of the interfaces or the first application.
5. A meter data management computer system for managing meter data, the meter data management computer system configured to communicate with a meter data collection system that collects meter data from a plurality of meters recording utility usage, and with an application software system, the meter data management computer system comprising: a computer processor; a storage device; a plurality of interfaces stored in the storage device including one interface configured to interface the meter data collection system and another interface configured to interface the application software system; and a message bus coupled to the computer processor and to the storage device, the message bus configured via middleware to transfer messages related to the meter data between the meter data collection system, the plurality of interfaces and the application software system; wherein: a first interface of said plurality of interfaces is configured to publish on the message bus a message related to the meter data; a list of identifiers or flags is stored in the storage device and shared by the plurality of interfaces, the first interface configured to publish on the message bus the message related to the meter data with an identifier that identifies the message as related to meter data, wherein the messages published on the message bus are available to the plurality of interfaces; wherein the application software system includes a validation, editing, and estimation software module; wherein one or more of the identifiers or flags is published by the validation, editing, and estimation software module; a second interface of said plurality of interfaces different from the first interface is configured to selectively retrieve only the messages of interest based on the identifier in the message from the message bus and to pass the messages between the meter data collection system, the meter data management computer system and the application software system; and the plurality of interfaces is configured to publish the messages with an identifier to the message bus simultaneously via the middleware such that none of the plurality of interfaces has to wait until publication of one or more of the messages by another of the plurality of interfaces has completed.
6. The meter data management computer system of claim 5 , wherein the identifier indicates a characteristic of content of the message.
7. The computer system of claim 1 , wherein each of the plurality of interfaces and the first application is configured to retrieve only the one or more messages that are pertinent to it and to ignore the one or more messages remaining that are present on the message bus and that are also available to such interface or the first application.
8. The computer system of claim 1 , wherein the message bus is configured to enable the one or more messages published on the message bus to be retrievable by a plurality of said interfaces and the first application.
9. A meter data management computer system for managing meter data, the system configured to communicate with a meter data collection system that collects meter data from a plurality of meters recording utility usage, and with an application software system, the meter data management computer system comprising: a computer processor; a storage device; a plurality of interfaces stored in the storage device, the plurality of interfaces including a first interface configured to interface the meter data collection system and a second interface configured to interface the application software system; a database residing in the storage device and configured to store the meter data or information derived from the meter data; a first application stored in the storage device and configured to insert the meter data or information derived from the meter data into the database; and a message bus coupled to the computer processor and to the storage device and configured via middleware to transfer the meter data or information derived from the meter data and messages related to the meter data between the meter data collection system, the first application, the database, the plurality of interfaces and the application software system, the message bus configured via the middleware to enable information published on the message bus and related to the meter data or information derived from the meter data or messages related to the meter data to be available to the plurality of interfaces and the first application; wherein: the plurality of interfaces and the first application are each configured to publish on the message bus the meter data, information derived from the meter data, and the messages with one of a plurality of identifiers shared by the plurality of interfaces and the first application; the plurality of interfaces and the first application are each configured to retrieve from the message bus only the published meter data, information derived from the meter data, and messages having a particular one of the plurality of identifiers; and the plurality of interfaces and the first application are each configured to publish information with one of the plurality of identifiers to the message bus simultaneously via the middleware such that none of the plurality of interfaces or the first application has to wait until publication of information by another of the plurality of interfaces or the first application has completed.
10. The computer system of claim 9 , wherein each of the plurality of interfaces and the first application is configured to retrieve only the information that is of interest to it based on the plurality of identifiers and to ignore the remaining information that is present on the message bus.
11. The computer system of claim 9 , wherein each identifier indicates a characteristic of content of such message, and the first application or another one of the interfaces is configured to retrieve from the message bus at least one message of interest based on the characteristic indicated by the identifier.
12. The computer system of claim 9 , wherein the message bus is configured to enable information published on the message bus and related to the meter data or information derived from the meter data or messages related to the meter data to be retrievable by a plurality of said interfaces and the first application.
Cooperative Patent Classification codes for this invention. Click any code to explore related patents in that topic.
August 28, 2007
October 6, 2020
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